When Illinois coach Bruce Weber starts planning for next season, much of his effort will be centered on forward Brian Randle.
Randle and center Shaun Pruitt will be the two returning senior starters asked to remind the younger Illini about the pain involved in Friday night’s 54-52 loss to Virginia Tech in the first round of the NCAA tournament’s West regional.
Randle’s November groin surgery, which cost him nine games, and a bout with plantar fasciitis, which cost him two games in January, were the kind of developments that resulted in the Illini being one of the last teams to get into the NCAAs.
The Illini made the field for the eighth straight time, but they had made it past the first round in each of their previous nine appearances since a first-round loss in 1995.
“We have to get someone who can create,” Weber said. “We thought Brian might be able to, maybe Jamar [Smith], take someone off the dribble like [Virginia Tech’s] Jamon Gordon did. Pull up, make a shot, get to the basket, get fouled.”
The Illini’s other returning starter, guard Chester Frazier, will be a junior. He starts the off-season recovering from a late-season knee injury that Weber said was a slightly torn medial collateral ligament.
Whether the injury had anything to do with Frazier going scoreless against Virginia Tech, his seventh scoreless game of the season, is a moot point, according to the coach.
“They have to improve,” Weber said of his returning players. ” . . . They have to accept what they are and then get better.”
Starters Rich McBride and Warren Carter and backup Marcus Arnold will be gone, and with them go the last strong links to the 2005 Final Four season that Randle missed with a broken hand and in which Pruitt played 21 games off the bench.
Weber said he had no problems with his players’ effort.
“They play with a lot of heart,” he said. . . . “They’re realistic [about] what they need to do.”
Examples?
“Chester will improve his shooting,” Weber said. “Brian will be getting more comfortable. Shaun has made a lot of improvement. Calvin Brock does some things at times but needs to work on his jump shot.”
Weber knows his team’s off-the-court problems contributed to a trying 23-12 season.
“We had three guys of our top 10 who didn’t play [against Virginia Tech], so it has been very difficult,” he said.
Smith, a sophomore guard, and freshman center Brian Carlwell missed the last eight games after the Feb. 13 car accident that left both with concussions and Smith facing DUI charges. Freshman forward Richard Semrau played five games in November, then had surgery for an infected chest contusion. He will apply for a redshirt year.
Weber has signed three in-state recruits for next season: 6-foot-3-inch guard Demetri McCamey from St. Joseph, 6-9 forward Bill Cole from Peoria Richwoods and 7-foot center Mike Tisdale from Riverton.
But next season it will come down mostly to players like Pruitt and Randle, who will have to forget about missing a free throw with four seconds left and Illinois down two points against Virginia Tech.
“Brian cares, maybe too much,” Weber said. “I think maybe he overanalyzes things. When you play, you have to have some cockiness and confidence, and you can’t be tense. . . . It would have been nice to have good things happen to him.”
About next season, Randle said: “We’ll be Top 25, stay in contention for the Big Ten and get back to the NCAA. We lose three guys, but we still have guys here who are willing to play hard and play for our purposes.”
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tabannon@tribune.com
